


A New Girl on Fire

by autumnalequinox



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-14
Updated: 2020-04-14
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:27:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23656831
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/autumnalequinox/pseuds/autumnalequinox
Summary: Another post-war, pre-epilogue take. Showing us what Katniss meant when she said, "Peeta and I grow back together."
Relationships: Katniss Everdeen/Peeta Mellark
Comments: 2
Kudos: 96





	A New Girl on Fire

**Author's Note:**

> Open to all feedback! My second fanfic ever, wow. I think it's a bit rushed, but I just needed to get it out of my notebook.

Peeta brought it up at home one day, the way he often brought things up.

“Sleeping in the same bed on the train. Real or not real?”

I surprised myself by blushing. “Real. But it wasn’t…we didn’t…”

He walked from the oven to our big wooden table and sat down beside me. His eyes were clear, and his face was calm. “It’s okay, I remember. We had nightmares,” he said.

“Yes. We have – had – nightmares of our first games.” I looked down at the peas I was shelling. “It helped to be near each other. We could remind each other it was only a dream…that it wasn’t real.” It dawned on me that helping Peeta sort out real from fake had been my job since before the war.

“I heard you screaming last night, Katniss,” Peeta continued. “Are you still having them? Worse now?”

Nobody else was around. “Yes, they’re even worse,” I said.

“Mine are too.” He looked down at his flour-dusted hands. I shook off the urge to grab them, fearful the action would startle him. “We could do that again. I think I could handle it,” he said.

“Peeta, what are you talking about?”

“We could stay together. My nightmares…they aren’t about you anymore. They haven’t been. The more we take care of each other now, the less I even flashback. It’s like these new memories are reminding me of the real, replacing the fakes.”

“Peeta, I – “

“Just, if you need me in the middle of the night, you can come get me. That’s all, Katniss.” He slowly reached out and twirled a strand of my hair, and neither of us flinched.

That night, I woke up in terror, sweating, little doubt I had been screaming. The nightmares were relentless. The worst ones featured the people I had killed – Cato, Thresh, Coin – back again as mutts. But they weren’t chasing me. They were chasing Rue, Prim, or Finnick. The people I loved were being killed by my accidental creations, just like in real life.

The room was pitch black, but adrenaline forced me to stand up and rush into the dimly illuminated hallway. My feet carried me to Peeta’s door, and my fist rapped on the dark wood.

As soon as he opened it, my brain regained control over my body. I took three steps backwards.

“Peeta, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you, I just-“ I whispered.

He suddenly stepped forward, sending my already worked-up nerve system into high alert. For a split second, I believed again he would kill me.

Instead, he grabbed my hand.

“Katniss. Please let me take care of you”

His blonde hair was ruffled, but I saw no trace of alarm in his face. He was breathing slowly and evenly. I nodded.

In bed, he wrapped his arms around me, and something inside of me snapped. I had cried for Prim, for all of the dead, but these tears were different. They were relief. I was relieved that I could be close to Peeta and safe again.

Before we drifted off, he said, “I won’t leave you again, Katniss.”

He didn’t.

Although he sometimes still had flashbacks. We started to learn the signs and triggers. But we also grew more at ease with each other. He would place his hand on the small of my back on walks or while we made the book. I wiped icing from his face. We held hands while we ate supper. Weeks went by like this, just being present with each other.

One day, he asked if he could come with me to the woods. I wasn’t sure. It was my one place, the only place where I could be alone and feel almost like my old self.

“You wouldn’t like it. The killing,” I told him as I loaded my arrows into their sack. I didn’t have to hide them in the woods anymore.

“I don’t want to hunt. I just want to see. I want to see what you see,” he replied.

We walked through the woods for over an hour, eventually meandering to the meadow. As we sat, he said, “I get why you love it here. I don’t have to fill my mind with thoughts to block out the bad.”

I smiled. I knew exactly what he meant. Being here emptied the mind, you could just _be._ He looked at me, and I knew he could see me, a sliver of me from before the games. I leaned closer and pressed my lips to his. He didn’t twitch or jerk just moved his hands to my hair, the back of my neck, pulling me closer gently.

I wasn’t sure we would ever do this again, but now that we did, it was the only thing I wanted. The hunger of the beach and the cave overtook me, but this time I was even less inhibited. There were no cameras, no doubt in either of our minds that we wanted to be kissing.

He didn’t try to do anything else besides kiss, which was probably for the best. When the kissing stopped, though, it was obvious his body had been ready for more. Peeta and I had been through everything together. This moment wasn’t embarrassing, and neither of us were ashamed. We were long past being able to hide from each other. Suddenly, I wanted to share with him, to match his vulnerability.

“Gale and I only ever kissed,” I said. My hands were holding one of his, and I closely examined his fingernails.

“That doesn’t matter to me, Katniss,” he said, scooting even closer.

“No, I just meant…I’ve only ever kissed. Anyone. You and Gale.” Did I see a smirk?

“I’ve only ever kissed, too,” he said. “And it’s okay if that’s all we do. I’m with you, always.”

We kissed a lot after that. Not like the Victory Tour, but real ones. Messy ones. We were more comfortable being affectionate around Haymitch, too. So comfortable, in fact, that we forgot all about it when Effie came to visit the following summer.

Her train arrived in the afternoon, and Haymitch went to meet her. Of course, Peeta and I spent the whole morning scrubbing every surface in the house and even making sure we had some luxury items on hand: meat and soap.

“I don’t know why she’d want to leave her life again to come all the way out here and see us,” I had said to Peeta as I dried the floor.

“Really, Katniss? Who else on the entire planet knows what Effie has been through?” he said. He always considered other people’s feelings.

He was right. Only Peeta, Haymitch and I knew. We were probably the only people she didn’t have to explain anything to. She spent years of her life worrying about us. Loving us. Perhaps our letters weren’t enough. Even though I was unhappy about making the house Effie-ready, I was thankful I would see her again.

When Effie and Haymitch got to the house, she looked like she had found a happy medium between her reaping day look and her bare bones District 13 uniform. She looked healthy. When she took me in her arms, we both started to cry. I could feel her shift into her role as my protector.

“There, there, my sweet Katniss. No time to cry! You must tell me absolutely everything. What has been happening in your little world? And I, of course, have _loads_ to tell you. So many updates from the center of new Panem!”

She chattered away, leading me to our living room, Haymitch trailing behind. I took a seat on the sofa while Effie and Haymitch perched and slumped, respectively, in the armchairs opposite.

“…and of course, they called me in to advise President Paylor on her hair and makeup before..” She froze mid-sentence.

“Well, well, am I to believe what is happening before my very eyes?” she nearly squealed.

“Effie, leave them alone,” grumbled Haymitch.

I was confused, until I realized my fingers were interlaced with Peeta’s. I hadn’t even noticed him sit down beside me. I didn’t jerk away, and Peeta lifted my knuckles to kiss them.

Effie teared up again. “It’s just simply _wonderful_ to know that nothing could stop true love in the end!” She clapped her hands together quickly. Haymitch and I rolled our eyes. Peeta beamed.

The four of us fell into a familiar routine of family breakfast and constant banter, just like it had been a thousand years ago on the train. We learned more about Effie’s life before District 12 escorting, and taught her some of our own traditions.

One afternoon during her stay, we decided we would have a bonfire later in the evening. I offered to go collect some wood from the forest. Of course, Effie wouldn’t hear it.

“Oh, Katniss! You don’t have to do _everything_ yourself. For once, won’t you let the men take care of us? Come, come.” I rolled my eyes, but I didn’t have the energy to put up a fight. Effie may have taken it as a slight. Instead, Peeta and Haymitch left to go find firewood. As soon as the door clicked shut behind them, Effie put her hand on my shoulder, and steered me to the kitchen table. Instead of sitting down, I busied myself making tea; doing something with my hands would help me focus on whatever story she was about to tell.

“You know, Katniss, you’ve been through more in your eighteen years than anyone should ever have to,” Effie said to the back of my head. As much as I didn’t want to talk about her new friends in the new capital of the new Panem, I _definitely_ did not want to talk about me. I prayed that the water in the kettle would boil faster and drown out her voice. It didn’t work.

“You’ve been through more than most full-grown adults,” she continued. “But I hope you know it’s okay to allow yourself to just enjoy your time as a young woman. It won’t last forever, you know.”

That actually made me chuckle.

“Yeah, well, it’s not like there’s a lot around for a young woman out here in charred-up District 12,” I said, spinning to look at her. “But thanks for the reminder.”

“As usual, Katniss, I suppose I will have to be more _straightforward._ What I _mean_ is that you should enjoy the pleasures of love and romance with your Peeta.”

“We are definitely not talking about this,” I said, suddenly needing to open and close every cabinet in the kitchen looking for a mysteriously missing item.

“Ah, classic avoidance. Exactly how I thought you might react to this little woman-to-woman chat.”

Luckily, at that moment, Peeta burst back through the door, claiming he had forgotten something, the axe, perhaps, I couldn’t hear him through the ringing of embarrassment in my ear. I made a big show of helping him find whatever it was, and darted upstairs.

That night, though, as we sat in front of the fire and Peeta wrapped his arm around me, I knew Effie was right. I did hold myself back from that kind of love with Peeta. I was so scared to give or take anything more and then lose him. It also never seemed fair that I got to live my life and be in love when Prim was dead. When I killed Coin. When I killed…

But all of this time would be lost in the end, no matter what. Did I want to end up on my deathbed having lived my whole life in fear and regret?

After we tucked into bed that night, Peeta kissed me, and I willed myself to feel all of it, every ounce of longing. It was difficult to not be scared, to not think of the dead who would never experience this. But Peeta could sense when my mind was wandering and brought me back to the moment, kissing me somewhere new.

When we took off our clothes, I felt nothing but desire. It was a completely new feeling, and I gave in to it. I wanted to have him, make him part of me, consume him. I was a different kind of killer, a new, better type of _girl on fire._

Reading my mind, my eyes, and my body, he inched nearer, running his hands along my side. I rolled onto my back and invited him inside.

It was both exactly and not at all what I imagined it would be. It felt good, but more importantly, it felt absolute. As soon as he was outside of me, I wanted him back, already craving that feeling of one-ness again.

We drifted to sleep. I swore to myself I would never tell him that Effie made me do this, but I did give him another truth.

“I love you, Peeta. It’s real, I promise.”


End file.
